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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Baked Gruyère and Sausage Omelet...

The meal that we had this evening was/is one of those dishes that could be prepared for breakfast, lunch or as we did, for dinner without thinking twice if it would work or not. While that's good and all, the best part for me was the fact that we typically have all the ingredients on hand for this Baked Gruyère and Sausage Omelet, minus the red bell pepper of course that I had to pick up from the market. I usually have some chopped in the freezer ready to go, but I ran out earlier in the week!

The layering begins in this dish by softening that pepper with a diced onion, then adding in a couple links worth of hot Italian turkey sausage. Stirring to crumble the meat as it cooked, we worked this in the skillet until the sausage had cooked through and begun to take on a little color. Using the hot Italian variety gave us a minimal tingle of spice, but certainly swap that for a milder sweet sausage if you like. Be sure to give this sausage and vegetable combo a few minutes to cool down before you jump to this next part.

To fulfill the omelet portion, we do need to get a few eggs mixed up! I split the whole eggs with a few egg whites just out of habit - if you want to use completely whole eggs, drop out the whites and add two additional eggs. To loosen those viscous eggs up, we stirred in a touch of milk, then seasoned the bowl with salt, crushed red pepper for kick and a few grains of fresh ground black pepper. Shreds of Gruyère cheese were stirred in for a rich, nutty counterpoint, along with the crumbled sausage mixture and chopped parsley to freshen it up. Once poured into the baking dish, we scattered over more of that fancy cheese for a smashing note on top.

Doneness will vary on your oven, but you are looking for the center to be just set and the top to be golden. If you don't trust your vision, you can slide a thin knife right into the center and see if it comes out mostly clean or excessively moist (and then you'll slide it back in and let it go an extra few minutes). A little wetness is ok though, as the heat from the dish will continue to radiate through and finishing cooking the center.

With most of the time needed to make this was just waiting for the oven to do its job, this dish was a pretty snazzy way to whip up a quick, tasty meal. The Gruyère made this feel more elegant and special, but this also comes at a price and makes it not as practical to prepare it on a whim - I imagine using a less expensive Swiss would work well enough if you wanted to trim down the cost. I thought working cherry tomatoes in would be a way to add variety, but Jeff thought this was ideal as is and suggested we leave well enough alone!